Get RSS feeds and email updates from Yahoo! Green

What you need to know about bio-based plastics

By Lori Bongiorno

Posted Wed Oct 22, 2008 1:23pm PDT

Related topics: Recycling, Tips, Plastic

More from The Conscious Consumer blog

We've all heard a lot about the dark side of plastics. Two common criticisms: They're made from petroleum (a non-renewable resource that's in short supply), and they hang around in landfills for centuries.

You can now buy items such as disposable plates, cutlery, and garbage bags made from corn, potatoes, and other agricultural products instead of oil. These renewable alternatives to petroleum are also designed to break down much more quickly than their typical plastic counterparts.

While there's no denying these are admirable benefits, it's important to take a look at the drawbacks as well.

For example, there are legitimate concerns about displacing food crops to make plastics. The real hope is that eventually most of the products will be made from agricultural waste rather than food crops, says Darby Hoover at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

It's also a good idea to become acquainted with the circumstances in which they'll biodegrade (break down into smaller components).

Here's what you need to know about buying and disposing of the latest generation of plastics.

Buying

Look for products that are entirely bio-based, or are labeled "biodegradable" and "compostable."
Choose products made from agricultural waste materials such as bagasse (the waste portion of sugar cane crop) when possible, rather than polyactic acid (PLA), a more common option made from corn.

Disposing

While bio-plastics do biodegrade, it's unlikely that will happen in a landfill or even your household compost facility. That's because the disposable plates, cutlery, and containers need to be fairly stable so you can use them. In most cases, they need to be sent to commercial composting facilities to biodegrade, says Hoover. Call your local waste management authority to find out if you live in one of the few communities with this option.
If not, do not mix bioplastics in with regular plastics for recycling. If you don't have access to a commercial compost facility you should dispose of them with your garbage, says Hoover. Some products do say they can be composted at home. The only way to know for sure if a particular product will break down in your composting system is by trial and error.

The bottom line? There are definite benefits to bioplastics if you have the means to compost them, especially if they're made from agricultural waste products. You can still make a difference by buying them even if you can't compost properly because you're voting with your dollars for products that aren't made from petroleum. It's up to you to decide whether to cast that vote.

Related topics: Recycling, Tips, Plastic

Email IM Bookmark del.icio.us Digg

You do not appear to have Yahoo! Messenger installed. Click here to download and install it.

« previous post next post »

Subscribe to Y! Green Featured Articles
Add to My Yahoo! RSS Feed
Subscribe to Y! Green News
Add to My Yahoo! RSS Feed

» About My Yahoo! and RSS

» What is Yahoo! Alert?

Alerts

Get an alert for updates:

View All Green Alerts »

Past Blog Entries

More…

comments from our community

Showing 1 - 4 of 4 comments

Post Comment

Posted by Jam Thu Oct 23, 2008 12:22pm PDT
Why won't you make these printer friendly!!!!!
Report Abuse
Posted by arthurz Fri Oct 24, 2008 7:02am PDT
In response to the concern about displacing food crops to make bio-plastic: According to the US Department of Agriculture, the US has a massive amount of cropland that is standing idle. Some of this land is idle because farmers receive tax dollars to leave it that way. But there’s a lot more. More than enough for food, bio-plastics, and bio-fuels. The only thing needed to use this land is the desire.
Report Abuse
Posted by chelsea_of_tx Sat Oct 25, 2008 11:31pm PDT
The poster who is saying there are arable lands laying fallow... that is crop land being unused... does not understand crop rotation & the reasons why land MUST remain unused at certain times. You can't use 100 percent of the soil, 100 percent of the time or else you use up all the nutrients in the soil & nothing will grow for a LONG time there & erosion then takes place. Farmers get to take this fallow land off their taxes because it's not being used at the time... much like everyone gets exemptions for their kids because their kids aren't working... or a business gets a write off for a loss. If the land doesn't earn money there should be no tax on it. Now, about displacing food crops to make luxury items that will still fill up landfills & create a lot more pollution in order to make them using chemical processes no one likes to discuss... it's obsurd, illogical & just another opulence indulged in by Americans who haven't the sense to even know where their food comes from to begin with let alone be able to be self sufficient should some disaster befall us (volcanic, astonomical impact, nuclear war that so many keep calling for). The very idea to take one's food & turn it into objects is a "let them eat cake" mentality which suggests the person has never once skipped a meal involuntarily in their life & has no concept of what it is to go without. It's part & parcel of this "entitled" attitude Americans are instilled with from birth that it's ok to be wasteful & damage the planet beyond recovery. Only when Americans are finally brought to their knees by a depression or some other calamity whereby most of us are doing without basic necessities & seeing people dying before our eyes in our own streets from poverty & malnutrition will we (as a society) discover the folly & arrogance of our ways. I am sure the so called "conservatives" who are anything but conservative in their lives & behavior will now descend upon this comment & tell everyone how ridiculous it is & that we should just all keep living willy nilly devil may care lives off the backs of third world slaves who serve & die for us while we never have to look them in the eyes each day while they toil to make our lives even more fit for kings than they already are. Healthy shame has been eradicated from our society & replaced with extrodinary skills for making excuses & rationalize why it's ok to be the parasites of the world & have not one shred of conscience about it. Anyone who can find excuses why it is ok to use edible food that could feed the world's starving in order to make luxury items destined only for landfills suffers from a void of conscience, inability to look forward to consequences, & total lack of regard for others' welfare. That would be the clinical definition of someone suffering from antisocial personality disorder which has become a plague of epic porportions in our society. The historical fate of Marie Antoinette with her "let them eat cake" attitude awaits all who support that same attitude today. Those who fail to learn the lessons from the past are doomed to repeat them.
Report Abuse
Posted by arthurz Tue Oct 28, 2008 7:20pm PDT
In response to the comments on my previous comments: I’m not going to write a resume of my qualifications, but I will say this. Having lived and worked my entire life in farm country, I am fully aware of the principles of proper land management, including the importance of crop rotation and why land is left fallow. Please be assured I am not suggesting that we abandon those principles, and I do not advocate or condone the practice of displacing food crops to make luxury items, fuel, or anything else. We don’t have to. I stand by my statement that the US has plenty of land for everything. I could have explained my comments in much greater detail (and perhaps I should have), but I was hoping I might encourage someone to do some extra homework on this issue. I still have that hope.
Report Abuse